BIRMINGHAM is standing on the brink of becoming one of Europe’s global transport hubs, says Transport Secretary Philip Hammond.

Fifteen years of proposed investment will see a new airport runway put booming countries like China within a direct flight.

And high speed rail promises to whisk passengers from Birmingham to the continent in just two hours.

On top of that, the city centre will be transformed when the £600 million New Street facelift is completed and smart new trams link it to the Jewellery Quarter and Black Country beyond.

The Birmingham Mail will this week put the transport network under the spotlight and consider how it might be shaped over the next decade.

We have also put road, rail and bus bosses on the spot to ask them the questions that matter to readers today.

“Birmingham is going to be one of the major European hubs in 20 years’ time,” Mr Hammond told the Mail in an exclusive interview. “Both in terms of road and rail, the city is going to be right at the heart of things.

“That’s a vision we believe in and we have already started to support it here with the investment in the Midland Metro.”

Mr Hammond gave his seal of approval to the £127 million tramway extension which will take the line from its current Snow Hill station terminus through the city to New Street in time for the 2015 completion.

Engineers will lift the station out of its concrete doom and create a gleaming gateway for more than 50 million passengers a year.

It will also boast a huge new John Lewis department store that could create up to 1,000 jobs.

Mr Hammond said it was crucial that the city stayed behind the plans as a consultation gets under way for the £17 billion section of 250mph track between Birmingham and London.

“The Metro and New Street are fantastic pieces of news,” he said. “Now they are followed by the consultation on high-speed rail and we are very strongly behind the project. Only by making this city truly connected will you deliver the huge growth that it is capable of.”